The Fallen
by Kingslvyer
Summary: Mathias learns a drastic deal about the man he could have loved. Actions by people long gone are dragged out into the light and he has to make a choice. When is it time to forget?


_In loving memory of J_

* * *

**The Fallen**

_Sigurd Bondevik_

x

_Mathias Køhler_

The autumn had been late this year, summer desperately hanging on into september. Now, in late october, the leaves were turning yellow with an amazing speed, and every day, a little more fell down to meet the ground. Mathias had, without realizing it, stopped in front of the vast amount of bouqettes in the flower shop. Today, one year had passed. Exactly one year since... He tried to focus on the flowers. He had no idea what to look for. And he could hardly ask the lady behind the counter for help.

"Excuse me ma'am, what kind of flowers says 'I hate you for dying' and/or 'I miss you every day'?"

All he knew what that he wanted to place some flowers on his grave. He'd eventually settled for a mixture of different flowers, hoping that Sigurd would at least like one of them. As he got on the subway he thought about why he'd done that. It wasn't like Sigurd could see them anyway. The ice cold lump of tears did a somersault. He bit the tears down. He _would not_ cry on a subway.

Half an hour later he was standing in front of the pale marble stone. It was a ridiculously beautiful day; the now yellow trees rustled in the fresh autumn air and the sky was a marvellous pale blue. There wasn't a cloud as far as your could see. The stone was discreet without being too humble. Sigurd would've liked it, he though once again. His brain didn't agree. He couldn't possibly have any idea of wether Sigurd would've liked it or not, because he couldn't ask him, because he was dead. Because somewhere under his feet Sigurd laid ever so still in a wooden box. He wouldn't answer a question ever again.

Mathias put the flowers on the grass. And he hated him. He hated Sigurd with an intent passion, he hated him for leaving him, for leaving in such a cowardly way. A little piece of him felt betrayed; _why didn't you tell me something? Anything?! ...Anything that could have saved you. And now you're dead. And it's too late for anything at all._

"You're Mathias." he looked up, shocked.

The voice had come from behind him. He spun around.

It was a woman. She was tall with long, brown hair and dark green eyes. She was really pretty.

"You're the one he left me for." she said. And Mathias suddenly didn't know anything at all.

He was silent for a while, he couldn't remember how to talk. All thoughts twirled around, nestled into each other and made an awful mess.

"I... Who are you?"

She looked at him with a pained expression on her face.

"I'm Emely." she said.

He knew her name all too well. A cold fist squeezed his heart until it was ready to burst. The sentence he was forming in his mind was physically painful to even think about, but he had to know.

"You were his fiancée."

She didn't answer. She didn't have to.

Her eyes were so dark and deep. She stared at the cold stone, thinking intently. And then she started talking.

"I'd known him for a couple of years before we started dating. At first, it seemed like a summer fling. We had fun for a month or two. I thought we'd never see each other again when he went away to study in Oslo, and in the daily dwindles of life, I forgot him. Three years went by, and then he was done in school and moved back home again. I met him on the street, it was like in a movie, you know, one of those cheesy romantic comedies." she said with a wry smile.

Mathias sincerely doubted she'd ever watch a cheesy comedy.

"Everything came back. He was so... so silent and yet so lively. He had a way of describing the world that would just leave you bewildered, wondering what he could see that you couldn't. Every now and then he'd space out, looking at something not meant for me. I'm sure you've seen it." She turned to him, boring into his eyes.

He searched in his memories, could vaugely recall something like it.

"... I think I have. Please continue."

She took a deep breath.

"That spring, he proposed to me on vacation in Paris. I said yes. Of course. By then I couldn't imagine a future without him. He was so caring, so kind, a little crazy when he felt like it..."

She chuckled a little but quickly got serious.

"I wanted nothing else than to grow old with him. Luckily his family liked me too. I don't know if you've met them..."

He shook his head, not daring to open his mouth in fear of crying. He suspected she noticed, because she continued talking like nothing had happened.

"We spent the entire summer planning the wedding. He wanted it to be in november, it's a tradition in his family, you see. It was supposed to be a small wedding with only our closest relatives and friends..." her voice trailed off, gaze focused on something distant.

When she started speaking again, her voice was strained, like she was forcing it not to sway.

"It was just an ordinary monday. I'd gotten home from work early to celebrate his first day as the manager. He stepped through the door and I knew something had happened. I had no idea what. Usually he shared freely the moments of his day, but not that day. Not that one, single time. At dinner he seemed so sharp around the edges, not at all his usual self. And I just couldn't figure out what was going on. I knew it was hardly my fault. I tried to ask him, but he'd only tell me it was nothing, and when I inquired, he got really irritated, and when I wouldn't budge, he got mad. He got so mad he slammed the door on his way out. I'd never seen him so angry.._._"

Mathias didn't say anything. He knew that she knew that he'd started the second week in september. Any ordinary monday, he'd gone to his new job...

"It took a week or so, but then I started fearing the worst, that he was cheating on me. I decided to give him until the next monday, to see if it was just first-week related stress. I gave him every chance to snap out of it. After two weeks of his weird behaviour, I didn't know what to do. I tried to set him up, I said I was really staying at a friends house when I really was keeping tabs on him, so desperately trying to prove that he was- that he was having an affair. But there was no proof. He was always alone, there were no lipstick on his collar, no change in his routines. If there wasn't the fact that he always looked so damn unsettled when I talked about the future, _our_ future, I probably would've just let it go. The second weekend in october, a friday, when he got back from work, he was suddenly happy. And I didn't get why. Of course I was happy that he was his old self again, and then he just said it. _I don't want to marry you._"

Mathias couldn't look at her, but he couldn't look away. Her green eyes locked with his anxious gaze. But there was no blame. Just a calm question. _If you hadn't been, would he have married me then? ...Would he still have been alive?_

Mathias couldn't bear to think about the answer. She was quiet for a little while. Her voice was soft when she said;

"When I asked him about it, he said that you couldn't marry someone if you were in love with someone else. And then he left me."

Her words cut him like a thousand flaming knifes. There must be some sort of misunderstanding. He couldn't possibly be the cause of all this...

"Are you sure he meant me? He could've meant someone else, anyone."

She suddenly looked almost embarassed.

"I'm not done yet. There's more."

In that moment, he almost walked away. How much more of this could he take? But something made him stay, if it was guilt, morbid curiousity, or the possibility of actually _knowing_ what kind of person he'd been, he didn't know. He stayed put and braced himself.

"That night he, uh... That last night, I'd tried calling him what felt like a million times. But he wouldn't pick up the _goddamn phone _just once_. _And I really, really, really needed to talk to him. I was gonna tell him I was pregnant. The last time I tried dialling, it went straight to voice-mail. Like it does when it's turned off... or broken."

She started crying, and he know exactly what she thought. There's not a phone in the world that works in water below zero degrees.

"I went to bed raving mad. I cursed him, I don't know how many times, for him not picking up his phone..." Her voice broke, the sobs increased.

Mathias didn't know what to say. What could he possibly say?

A little while went by. She dried her eyes with her expensive jacket sleeve.

"The police called me later, in the middle of the night, and asked me to come.."

She bit her lip, shook her head, looked away.

"..to identify him."

Mathias shivered, pictures of the Sigurds cold, pale face appeared in his mind.

Her voice was barely a whisper when she said:

"The reason they could identify him so quickly was that there was a person on the bridge who saw everything. Apperantly he'd been sitting on the rail, but quickly turned around when he realized there was a person there, and he must've lost his balance, because then he fell.. hit his head and..." Another sob.

"He didn't jump." Mathias said.

_He didn't jump. Maybe he got there, sat down on the railing, and was just frightened when he heard another person... maybe he'd been staring off into space, and hadn't heard him, and was shocked. Maybe his death was an accident. Maybe... _

Emely had collected herself again, and shook her head.

"He'd... He left a letter. It was addressed to you. When the police gave it to me, I swore I was gonna leave it to you immediately. But I didn't. I was a horrible, egoistic person, and refused to pass it on. I didn't want you to have solace, or closure, or whatever you want to call it, not when I was left raising our child without a father. It didn't seem fair."

The silence was suffocating.

"What about... what about the baby?" he asked.

A little smile warmed her face.

"His name is Erik. He turns six months the day after tomorrow."

As if she'd sensed his question she said "He's got my eyes, but other than that, he looks just like his father."

Mathias looked away, sniffled.

She took a look at her watch. "I should go. My mother's watching him, but she gets tired easily. I just wanted to give you this."

She passed over the letter. It had his name on it alright. He'd expected something more flashy, but it was just a white letter with 'Mathias' scribbled on it. Like it'd been done in a haste.

"Wait", he said, when he saw that she was about to leave.

"How'd you know I'd be here?"

"I didn't. I just wanted to come see his grave, since it's a year ago... I brought the letter on a whim. I don't know why. And you just _looked _like a Mathias. Something told me it was you."

She was quiet for a second or two.

"Also, when you read the letter... Don't think too bad of him, I'm... I'm assuming you're straight, and I get that this is a little weird, but please, don't throw it away or anything. Worst case scenario, just give it back to me. Just don't toss it. It was the last thing he wrote..."

Her eyes teared up again.

Mathias looked her steadily in the eyes. "I promise I wont throw it away."

"Thank you." she said.

Mathias watched her walk away.

He looked back at the grave. He wanted to say something, but didn't know if that was appropriate. He decided to take his chances.

"It feels as if... Like I know you a little bit better now. I mean, since you're dead, you wont be able to correct me if I got anything wrong, but then again, that was the choice you made. You didn't want to be able to correct me, because then you'd have stuck around. And I don't know if I can forgive you for that. For leaving me. And _then_ telling me."

An aching, ice cold lump had formed in his stomach.

"You have a baby, for christs sake. You have a little son. He needs you. And yet you're here. If you'd only had waited, just another day, then Emely would've walked over to your place and told you that you were going to be a father, and then none of this would've happened. If you'd been there for that, then I would've been around to tell. I didn't love you then, but you never gave me the chance to_._"

He stood silent for a while. The sky was still bright blue. The trees' branches were still rustling in the brisk wind. On the earth, nothing particular had happened. But his life was forever changed.

And then he said it.

"If you hadn't killed yourself, I could've loved you. And now we'll never know."

He left the grey stone to it's fate. All the way home he tried to brace himself for what that letter would say. But then he gave up. Say what it may, he thought.

_It's hardly gonna change a thing._

No one was there to tell him he was wrong.

* * *

The letter was on the kitchen table. It'd been lying there for two days now. No one had touched it since. The man the letter was addressed to was in the bed in his bedroom. The phone in the hall had rung every now and then. He hadn't picked up. The mail had rustled down on the carpet, but he hadn't got up to get it. The flowers remained un-watered. Eventually, someone would pick up the letter and put it in a drawer. But not for another couple of days. For now, the letter's owner was too occupied with breathing. It had suddenly become so very difficult.

* * *

_I love you. _

_I love you. _

_I love you. _

_I was gonna tell you at the bar tonight but... _

_You seemed so happy with her. _

_You smiled your special smile and tucked in a strand of hair behind her ear. _

_I could tell you like her very much. _

_I think she adores you as well. _

_How can you not? _

_At least I have no idea. _

_I have no freaking idea of how to stop loving you. _

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you. _

_Fuck. I'm running out of paper. _

_I wish I had more paper. _

_I wish I could write 'I love you' again and again and again. _

_I wish I would never stop writing 'I love you'. _

_I love you._

_I love you. _


End file.
